By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
It’s déjà vu all over again, and, frankly, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. On the climate question, the totalitarians told us we must believe, just believe the experts. As a hard-headed British engineer once defined it: “Expert: x, an unknown quantity; spurt, a drip under pressure.” On the Chinese virus, we are told the same.
Pity the governments that have had to attempt to take rational decisions on what to do about the Chinese virus when, as with climate change, the data are inadequate and incompetently kept, the world body nominally in charge is inept, corrupt and – to put it mildly – deferential to totalitarian regimes, and the soi-disant “experts” cannot agree among themselves.
In Britain, it does not help that the Prime Minister, on five occasions at the beginning of this year, failed to prioritize his time in such a way as to take the trouble to attend and chair the weekly intelligence meeting held in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A.
It is these meetings that are intended to be the gathering-place for information garnered by Britain’s various intelligence services around the world, under the aegis of the Prime Minister and the Chief of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Had Mr Johnson attended those meetings, he would perhaps have intervened to do something about the then-alarming daily case-growth rate at least a month earlier than he did.
As it was, he dithered until two weeks after Mr Trump – who was himself late in acting – declared a national emergency. The consequences are now becoming all too apparent. It is possible that Britain has now lost more of her citizens to the Chinese virus than any other country except the United States and China. We don’t know for sure, because a third of all British deaths arise outside hospitals and are thus ingeniously excluded from the Government’s daily counts, though the Office for National Statistics is now publishing a weekly parallel series giving the real numbers.
Among the truly half-witted advice given by the “experts” are three points that deserve urgent correction. Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose model HM Government chiefly heeds, said yesterday that large gatherings are not particularly important for transmitting the virus. On this point, the South Koreans would beg to differ. Their elaborate and determined contact-tracing has shown that the infection first got its boots on at a large church assembly, to whose members many of the first cases in South Korea were traced back.
Secondly, most Western governments, with less recent experience of fatal infections than those in the Far East, have still not quite learned the importance of asking their citizens, when outside their own homes, to wear some form of face-covering.
As South Korea’s chief of public health has bluntly said in a recent interview, homemade face-masks are by no means perfect, but they help a great deal by preventing droplets from coughs and sneezes from traveling well beyond the 6 ft that most countries have adopted as the minimum “social distance”. Even with masks, 16 ft would be better than 6 ft. Without masks, 6 ft is a dangerously inadequate distance.
Mr Trump, in his three-phase plan for bringing the lockdown to an end as soon as it is safe, has gotten the point about do-it-yourself face-coverings. His plan strongly recommends them. HM Government, however, continues to dither on this as on much else. Unlike Mr Trump, it has proven wholly unable of even giving a hint of what an exit strategy from the lockdown might look like, and people are becoming justifiably alarmed that their elected representatives do not trust them.
The worst of all the pieces of bad advice handed down by the “experts” is the idea that the best way to deal with this pandemic is to let as many people as possible get the infection and acquire what they chillingly call “herd immunity”.
As the South Koreans have discovered, it is far from clear for how long the immunity acquired by those who have recovered from the infection will persist. Until that central question is answered, it cannot be safely assumed that population-wide immunity will be rapidly or effectively acquired.
Here are today’s graphs showing the daily compound growth rates in cumulative confirmed cases and in deaths. As always, they are seven-day averages, so as to iron out random fluctuations in the data. Note that it is cumulative cases, and not just new cases, that determine the future rate of transmission.
Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19 for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 28 to April 18, 2020.
Fig. 2. Mean compound daily growth rates in cumulative COVID-19 deaths for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from April 4 to April 18, 2020.#
Ø High-quality images of the graphs are here.
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Dear Christopher,
Your “cumulative confirmed cases” graphs are completely daft! For a start they are based on PCR* tests that can only tell you if the person has the virus at that moment. It can not tell you if they’ve had the virus or not. That is a different test, an antibody or serology test. They are two different and unique tools that tell you two unique things, if you have it or if you’ve had it!
So.. if you don’t have it (According to PCR) you might have had it (According to serology) yet, if you haven’t had it, you might have it right now or you might get it! 😉
The current figures are next to useless accept for sexing up death rates. We are only testing the symptomatic, a narrow and in most countries highly government regulated sample of the population i.e. those who are seriously ill already or those who report themselves sick, have travelled recently or fit other high risk categories.
Neither test can tell you if the person is currently sick, was sick or will become sick from the virus!
The vast majority of the reported dead world wide are figures conflated by comorbidities.
Personally and to make my own rather heterodox perspective clear, I genuinely wonder – when or if the smoke clears – if we will ever even find a single person who can be demonstrated to have died of COVID-19 – the disease – with the single cause being a SARS-CoV-2 viral infection with no underlying comorbidities.**
Now, can we please turn our attention back to the biggest worldwide financial collapse in history!
IMHO the crony virus is a vicious but clever way for our elites to claim plausible deniability for blowing up the world economy… yet again! This time the result will be murder on an unimaginable scale and the number of deaths will make COVID-19 a byword for insignificant!
*PCR In the main because of very little serology testing to date and accepting that PCR are 100% accurate; which they aren’t.
**And not caused by some other “novel” pathogen or biological weapon.
Whether this is a biological weapon needs to be fully explored.
That China did much to hide the problem and destroy evidence is suspicious. Is this just China’s normal level of deceit or something worse?
In response to Mr Bennett, the most important number in any new epidemic is the compound daily rate of cumulative confirmed cases, for the confirmed cases tend to be those which are most at risk of death. In most countries, that compound daily growth rate remains far too high for comfort, but it is coming down, not only because governments have imposed lockdowns but also because people have themselves been learning that it pays to be cautious.
One of Britain’s most eminent statisticians has been shocked to find that excess mortality in Britain in the past couple of weeks has been worse than at any time since current records began. Anyone following the daily growth rate in cumulative confirmed cases will not have been surprised.
Elementary epidemiology dictates that in the early stages of a new pandemic the daily growth rate will be exponential. Had the daily growth rate of 20% that prevailed in the three weeks to March 13 continued even for a few more weeks, the consequences would have been catastrophic. Fortunately, both governments and peoples realized that shrugging off this particular pathogen as though it were merely a flu virus was not a safe course to take.
The daily graphs here are now showing that – though the daily growth rates remain far too high for comfort – they are no longer in the global-catastrophe zone. Therefore, lockdowns are being dismantled. It is interesting to see how effective these graphs have been in showing first that the daily growth rates were dangerously high and then that, as the world began to get to grips with the pandemic, the growth rates have shown a firm downtrend.
It is neither fair nor sensible, therefore, to consider the graphs as “daft”.
I am now officially baffled. It seems to be true that coronavirus isn’t much worse than the flu. It is also true that it has overwhelmed medical systems and led to unnecessary deaths.
The only thing I have concluded is that the authorities treat the deaths of senior citizens at the hands of the regular flu much too lightly. As it was with SARS, this kind of disease doesn’t become a ‘big deal’ until medical care workers start dying.
There does seem to be agreement that the number of excess deaths is up. link
A big part of the problem is that doctors are trying to treat an illness they don’t understand, but treat it like they do. That has caused ICU ventilator capacity to be overwhelmed. But that is actually a good thing because it forced doctors to explore other less invasive options that are proving less fatal to patients.
Good thing there’s no shortage of hammers.
I see that CommieBob, having made the mistake (surprisingly common in comments here) of assuming that the Chinese virus is no worse than the annual flu, has checked the data and has found that it is considerably worse than the annual flu. It is both more infectious and more fatal. That is why governments were right to take a cautious approach until we learn a little more about it.
The tell for me was Ecuador where “The result is overwhelmed hospitals, morgues, funeral homes and cemeteries.” link
It blows my mind that, in the face of all the above, some folks can continue to make excuses that things are proceeding as normal in Ecuador, or that the government’s response is totally responsible for the disaster.
“On the climate question, the totalitarians told us we must believe, just believe the experts. As a hard-headed British engineer once defined it: “Expert: x, an unknown quantity; spurt, a drip under pressure.” On the Chinese virus, we are told the same.”
Yes sir.
The parallels are many and climate science intends to use the fear of the virus to sell the climate.
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/19/corona-sells-climate/
Deutsche Welle is attempting to collectively guilt trip humanity for epidemic outbreaks, due to a lack of protecting the environment. They even cite some phoney peer review paper titled “Global shifts in mammalian population trends reveal key predictors of virus spillover risk”
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.2736
interesting paper from the NIH.
“All influenza A pandemics since that time (1918-19), and indeed almost all cases of influenza A worldwide (excepting human infections from avian viruses such as H5N1 and H7N7), have been caused by descendants of the 1918 virus, … making the 1918 virus indeed the “mother” of all pandemics”
The mother of the 1918 pandemic was more than likely CH3COOC6H4COOH
Which leads me back to hammers. A hammer can give a headache or take it away.
The worst of all the pieces of bad advice handed down by the “experts” is the idea that the best way to deal with this pandemic is to let as many people as possible get the infection and acquire what they chillingly call “herd immunity”.
Two questions:
1. Why does it appear to me that the overwhelming number of “experts” want maximum isolation and minimum social contact – even for months? This does not appear to be promoting a quick development of herd immunity.
2. Is it really “the worst of all pieces of bad advice” for large numbers of healthy adults and children (perhaps 80% of the population) to be exposed and quickly gain immunity?
Social welfare for the poor is affordable when there is high employment and generous wages.
Social welfare when there is high unemployment is an unmitigated disaster – especially if most of the economy is shut down. If the politicians and the medical advisors and experts had to take massive pay cuts and have the threat of losing their jobs, they would be responding very differently.
‘ The worst of all the pieces of bad advice handed down by the “experts” is the idea that the best way to deal with this pandemic is to let as many people as possible get the infection and acquire what they chillingly call “herd immunity”. ‘
I wish I too had the gift of clairvoyance giving me fore-knowledge as to how this crisis will turn out in terms of the numbers and the optimal way of ensuring minimal final death rate in such circumstances. Those of us not so gifted will sadly have to resort to merely weighing up evidence and listening to informed debate while resisting the temptation to decide on the winner before the race is over.
Perhaps I’m wrong but a) has anyone suggested that we let as many people as possible get the infection – qualification and b) given the presence of the virus, past or present, in asymptomatic people, isn’t it extremely likely that this virus will never leave us but join with the other influenza viruses to form part of our vast ecosystem?
In response to Miha, the UK’s chief scientific officer said in an early Government press conference that he wanted everyone to acquire “herd immunity” – he actually used these words in the press conference. International scorn greeted his remarks and, within 24 hours, the Government had had to repudiate them.
He had not realized that it is not yet clear that the immunity acquired when clearing the infection will endure. Some cases in South Korea, where there has been rapid reinfection, suggest otherwise. Till more is known, taking the risk of allowing the pandemic to spread unchecked would be irresponsible.
“Professor Giesecke was the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and an advisor to the World Health Organisation’s director general.
Professor Johan Giesecke said he had never seen an unpublished non-peer-reviewed paper have so much impact on government policy. He estimates that the fatality rate of this coronavirus will be similar to that of the flu – something in the region of 0.1%. He describes Covid 19 as a `mild disease’, similar to the flu”
Richard continues to fail to put himself in the mind of a responsible government. HM Government had for some weeks been having discussions with scientists on both sides of the lockdown debate, including Professor Ferguson. Since hours count in the early stages of any pandemic, the Government could not afford the luxury of waiting till the Professor’s paper had been peer-reviewed. It was already beginning to run out of vital supplies of everything from ICU beds to ventilators to masks, gloves and gowns for doctors and nurses.
The excess-mortality statistics in the UK show very clearly that, over the last few weeks, there has been a sharp spike in excess mortality – well above even the worst annual flu in recent decades. So those – however well qualified – who try to maintain that this virus is no worse than the annual flu are already being proven wrong by events.
Yep, 500,000 did the trick- lock down. Now with new data coming out hopelessly wrong.
Still no numbers from , Mr Monckton, on those who died “with” or “of” the disease.
Mr Monckton would been seen as not a credible witness.
Thanks, Lord Monckton for the replies to concerns raised here. We should definitely bear in mind the pressures on representatives of responsible government these days, especially when confronted with a novel pandemic whose ultimate mortality rates are unknown.
Expanding a bit on how little is known, South Korea gets highlighted a lot, as a successful effort at tracking and containing the spread of the pandemic, and all without shutting down most businesses, apparently. You could argue that South Korea might well be the ‘wave of the future’ in dealing with these things, and I’m willing to listen to that idea. But then, how did we in the West get convinced that the route of relatively ineffective and economically terrible business shutdowns was the way to go? Is there any lesson at all to be learned in that, or not?
Given that South Korea shows some evidence of a successful approach, the ultimate effect or necessity of what they are doing there still isn’t totally clear. Until very recently, Japan was doing at least as well without taking those same measures, although I understand that Japan’s leaders are really concerned about the current spike in cases there. Playing the numbers game, Japan currently has about 9400 cases, a generally ‘large’ sounding number of cases, and doubtless increasing.
But, wait now, just wait, Japan has over 136 *million* people! That means this ever so upsetting number, 9400 cases, ‘cases soaring to the heights’, justifying goodness knows what measures, all of this amounts to about *80* confirmed cases counted up, per *million* persons so far! So just on current data, and understanding that “it gets worse before it gets better”, surely you would want to be circumspect about how much punishment to dish out to the people, even with larger numbers of cases then that? I mean, just show some real concern on the workforce and economic levels, while finding ways of dealing with the ongoing pandemic — and don’t wreck half the livelihoods in the country? If really necessary, maybe find ways to monitor people ‘in bad times only’, while somehow guaranteeing that society will still come out with basic privacy rights and safeguards intact, and all without acting like a job killing “bull in a china shop” over it?
At this point, likely someone or other is going to give me reassuring words that the lock downs are about to be phased out, and the economy will recover. All the while hinting of course, that if total numbers of cases — along with a significant body count — continue to rise then all the lock downs and fiscal meltdowns will come roaring right back?!
What can I say but,
“The Solution is Unsatisfactory”.
One question I have is what are chances of being exposed to flu virus ? How many people in USA per year are exposed ? If the number is a low pct then deaths won’t be as high. Compare flu to possible exposure to Covid19. I suppose exposure depends on R0.
Seems that because Covid19 spreads so fast it can overwhelm the hospitals even if the mortality rate is comparable to the flu.
“Seems that because Covid19 spreads so fast it can overwhelm the hospitals even if the mortality rate is comparable to the flu.”
Exactly. Not only that but there is no or if we are lucky maybe a minuscule immunity in the population which means that even with a low mortality rate most people will get it, get sick and a lot die. More than with the flu because of the following reason:
For influenza there is a lot of immunity present even for new strains because they are still related to each other. With every new infection during the seasonal wave over the years people are generating new antibodies which just by chance might work against new strains pretty efficiently. Researchers have found so called “superantibodies” that work against all of the most prevalent 16 influenza strains. This limits the spread through the population and decreases the mortality.
There is no such thing for this family of corona viruses SARS-CoV-2 is part of.
There may be some immunity conferred from previous infections of other corona viruses. For example, why do the majority of those that become infected have mild or no symptoms?
Furthermore, Asian countries in general seem to be in better shape despite the virus originating in China. This could be from wider, more recent exposure to a closer variant.
Hospitals have only been overwhelmed in a few places. In the U.S., the health care system has largely been closed down. Routine screenings, procedures, etc., are not being done and this will have a negative effect.
“There may be some immunity conferred from previous infections of other corona viruses. For example, why do the majority of those that become infected have mild or no symptoms?”
Because the immune system and regeneration capacity are in better shape in younger people. There are not only antibodies but other parts as well that prevent symptoms.
If an immunity from previous infections would be a factor then we would not expect to see a spike in deaths in the group 15-64 years.
Coronaviridae are comparable to mammals but then there are placentalia and marsupialia and they are related but not as close as wolf and dog. So it is very unlikely that the flu corona viruses grant any immunity to the SARS branch. Antibodies need at least some peptide homology to work on other viruses.
To avoid confusions:
“Coronaviridae are comparable to mammals” as a term in doing classifications…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/19/wuhan-coronavirus-and-covid-19-rumination-5/#comment-2971266
Just one change in amino acid sequence can decide if an antibody still binds a similar peptide or not. Completely random. So one needs homology of at least 8 consecutive amino acids to be on the save side and then the luck that exactly this fragment of the virus was used by chance to generate an antibody.
E.g. the similarity between the external subdomain of Spike’s receptor binding domain shares only 40% amino acid identity of SARS-CoV-2 and other closely related corona viruses(1) and the use of the phrase “highly conserved” in the context of the RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase (RDRP) might be misleading for people not familiar with the field (2, Fig.3).
When it comes down to its phylogeny SARS-CoV-2 is quite distinct to other beta corona viruses ever detected in humans (HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1, yes it’s only two without SARS and MERS) and more closely related to some found in bats (3, Ext.Fig. 2).
The SARS viruses are even encoding for eight proteins where none homology could be found in other corona viruses described so far (4). Interestingly, one particular protein could at least partly explain the high lethality (4) and why innate immunity could be very important.
In addition, even all four of the cold-associated alpha and beta corona viruses together are only estimated to make up for 15% of cold cases.
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31987001/
(2) https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0042682298994636?token=DE2FCC018FEF550BD70B4BA2128F5F9835F754D392210C716639567EFEDCCCFDE718FB2FEE19E7F581451ECBC3E3AF60
(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095418/
(4) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168170206001912?via%3Dihub
Actually, the RDRP seems to be very distinct from other corona viruses of the subclass sarbecovirus arguing for a new and unique virus transmitted to humans (1, Fig. S1). Not even talking how distinct it is from the two cold strains which belongs to the subclass of embevovirus (1, Fig.3 & Fig. S1).
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7159086/
In response to Stevek, it is now known that the mortality rate of this infection is worse than that of the annual flu. See the latest excess-mortality data for the UK, for instance.
If anyone is to blame for USA problem it is Dr Fauci.
On Feb. 18 he states that the “hypothetical danger of coronavirus” to America was “just minuscule” compared to the “real and present danger” of the seasonal flu. Days later he finally changed his views
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/03/virus_experts_early_statements_belie_prescient_portrayal_142845.html
Fauci is suppose to be the expert. We can’t blame Trump for not listening to the experts.
Others on message boards I read were posting to shutdown all of USA border in January. I suspect these people were viewed as xenophobic, right wingers.
At the Feb 19 Democrat debate Covid was not even mentioned.
At the Feb 19 Democrat debate Covid was not even mentioned.
However, the Democrats and the mainstream media (“his master’s voice”) ignore the facts that while the first confirmed case in the US was on Jan 20 and first death on Feb 29, they expected their President to act like the very existence of the US was under threat before even a single person had died of the virus in the US. So why was the virus not even on the list of questions at the debate?
In response to Michael in Dublin, the first confirmed case of this new pathogen should have led governments to act at once to contain it, as South Korea and Taiwan did. Hours count. The faster one acts to test, isolate and contact-trace, the more likely it is that a lockdown can be prevented.
Christopher
You said, “… the first confirmed case of this new pathogen should have led governments to act at once to contain it, …” I take it then that your advice to governments is to lockdown society every time a new pathogen presents itself, even when little or nothing is known about its behavior? I think that the world’s economic future will be very bumpy and uncertain should your advice be adopted.
Sometimes losses are acceptable, such as when Churchill authorized a diversion to allow the troops stranded on the beach at Dunkirk to escape. It was generally accepted that sacrificing 4,000 to save 30,000 was an acceptable trade-off. Perhaps today we are less concerned about the bigger picture because we are focused on avoiding any loss of life.
Did the CCP tell their puppets not to mention it?
Great to see that definition of an ‘expert’ in the first paragraph of the article by Lord Monckton.
It was spelled out to me and 400 odd other first year engineering students by the dean of engineering on day 1 of semester 1 of year 1.
I still cringe when asked to provide ‘expert’ evidence in legal matters. Happy to offer some expertise but never characterise myself as an ‘expert’.
There’s really not much new information now for several days other than a continuation of trends indicating that we are past the peak and a few dodgy studies tantalizing us with the possibility that regions now passing through a large peak may be approaching herd immunity (while simultaneously demonstrating that those regions that haven’t experienced a surge are potential powder kegs waiting to explode).
We still don’t have any studies of serological testing for antibodies with valid, randomized, representative samples, especially in areas like New York where the “everybody’s got it” hypothesis could be tested. We still don’t have any antibody testing of patients known to have had a positive diagnostic test and symptoms, to determine the extent that they have developed antibodies to sars-cov2. There’s still no clarity on whether HCQ-Zn is effective and safe for covid-19 patients. We’re still in lockdown.
Well it’s been all of 4 days over a weekend since the Abbott antibody test kits started shipping, so I am not surprised that we don’t have the serological test results yet, but do we know that the studies are even underway? Do we know that there is even a finalized plan to get them underway? You could not learn that from the Trump Show, where the President spends most of the time rehashing his schtick of defenses against the fake news criticism of his response, and then the fake news asks a slew of idiot gotcha questions to generate far more heat than light. They want to know nothing that I consider key. Instead they try to trap Trump into a sound bite where he guarantees the impossible so that they can come back later with some sob story contradicting him. Can the administration guarantee that there will be enough testing in every hamlet across the land at every moment in time?
What kind of testing? What difference does that make to the idiot reporters? We don’t want to know if there will be useful testing, we just hope that somewhere somehow somebody might have to wait an hour to get tested. Then we’ve got OMB! (Orange Man Bad)
Rich
You are right – with antibody tests available, all that is needed is a well randomised test of a couple of hundred individuals, then you know approximately the percent of “herd immunity”. In California I believe they did this and found about 2%.
Covid19 originated in Yunnan, not Wuhan, in Sptember 2019.
This new research from Cambridge University UK sheds light on the virus’ origin and how it spread. The team of scientists mapped the network of strains of the virus that differ by small mutations (the small notches in the lines). The length of the lines shows how many mutations happened from one form to the other. This powerful method lays bare the history of covid19.
– 3 big clusters are the main types: A is Yunnan in south China, B is Wuhan and C is Europe. Colour of each circle represents the region. Notice the bat – the black dot in the bottom right corner.
– The virus jumped from bat to human in Yunnan (not Wuhan) – cluster A – as early as September 2019. From there it went to Wuhan, but some spread to America and Europe occurred direct from Yunnan.
– B, Wuhan is the biggest cluster. All transmission of B type out of Asia was accompanied by mutation.
– C is the Europe mutated strain, absent from China.
Generally it’s clear that a lot of links keep forming, as people travel. But the genetic map shows the origin and how emergence of new types accompanied spread around the world.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/07/2004999117
Where did you get the September date?
The September start date is given in some press reports although it is not in the paper. However it is clear that the strain B that started getting noticed in Wuhan in November was far from being the original form, it was separated already by numerous mutations from the more archetypal form A associated with Yunnan and the one arising directly from a bat 🦇 . So a September – or even earlier start, is not at all improbable.
Monckton of Brenchley wrote:
…that large gatherings are not particularly important for transmitting the virus. On this point, the South Koreans would beg to differ. Their elaborate and determined contact-tracing has shown that the infection first got its boots on at a large church assembly…
Depends on the nature of the large gathering, I suspect.
My experience of church services is that the whole congregation tends to physically interact with one or a small number of the “officials” (shaking hands with the vicar, etc). Plus friends and neighbours physically interacting before and after. This behaviour is very likely to spread an infectious disease. If the church is cultish, it may have its own touchy-feely-huggy interactions between congregants as part of the service.
Commercial sporting events, in contrast, tend to consist of lots of strangers in close proximity to only a few. Standing in a crowd of thirty thousand isn’t going to be much different to standing in a group of twelve. Even funnelling through access points isn’t going to change things much (unless there are physical searches or some such).
PJF is wrong yet again. Some of the rapid spread of the infection in the UK has been attributed to the Cheltenham race meeting, where large crowds gathered in close proximity to one another for several hours a day over four days. Ferguson is wrong on this point.
Some of the rapid spread of the infection in the UK has been attributed to the Cheltenham race meeting,
Really? What evidence is there for this?
Some of the rapid spread of the infection in the UK has been attributed to the Cheltenham race meeting, where large crowds gathered in close proximity to one another for several hours a day over four days.
Well, no doubt, some has been attributed to London Northwestern Railway and the Eastleigh Library Knitters, but this doesn’t change my point about the varying nature of large gatherings.
As Monckton of Brenchley points out, the Cheltenham race meeting occurred over four days. This means many attendees were staying at hotels, very likely meeting and mingling with far flung friends in bars and restaurants, with lots of kissing on cheeks as is the habit with that set.
Thirty thousand grumpy midlanders turning up to watch Derby County on a Saturday afternoon is a different metaphor of cliché.
Here in Ontario (Canada), the provincial government has announced they will unveil new data modelling today (April 20):
<>
We’ll see if this new version of the scareware, err software, model will be anymore “expert” than the previous.
Oops! My quoting of the announcement vanished because of faulty use of tags. Here is the announcement:
—–
The province will unveil new COVID-19 data modelling on Monday. In his Saturday media briefing, Premier Doug Ford said Ontarians deserve to see the same data he sees in order to make decisions and plans for our own families. Ford said, “On Monday we will see how far we have come, and how far we have to go.” He said the new data will chart the course of COVID-19 in the province for the “weeks and months to come.”
—–
As a non-expert in nursing homes and assisted living centers from past assistance for family members, it was apparent early on to me that such centers would be very vulnerable to this virus. The comings and goings of care providers of many services and frequent trips of the residents to hospitals and back reminded me of the extreme risk in this situation. If there were a lot of extra steps taken to protect these centers, those must have failed. We should at least have a review of what the failings were. Germ spread in hospitals needs another round of reforms and prevention with UVC lights or other upgrades and review. The blame game should not be limited to politicians when hospitals become major vectors and hot spots for spread, not to mention airlines and cruise lines.
Good point. The residents of these nursing home facilities (many privately operated) are at the whim of the management and their efforts to contain any potential entry of the virus to their facilities. These elderly residents have no chance to further self isolate an are completely dependant on the institution to do what is necessary to contain any viable entry of the virus to their premises. There are a lot of examples of nursing homes that completely dropped the ball, in some cases criminally, such as in Quebec where basically the residents were practically abandoned and few staff even showed up for work, preferring to take the unemployment benefits that Govt’s offer for everyone to just quit work.
Same for hospitals for better high tech, and hopefully they are thinking about improving their bio security both with technologies such as UVC and better basic hygiene, and/or limiting entry of other known vectors for the disease to enter and spread exponentially once introduced. This should be one of the easiest and most obvious points to start the review. For this Wuhan coronavirus, these older people with comorbidities are most at risk to the consequences of said virus and the nursing/old folks homes are the low hanging fruit that get hit hardest. While many of these people are at deaths door in the scheme of things, there is no excuse for sloppy management of senior care.
Posted for info:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235979/UKs-coronavirus-crisis-peaked-lockdown-Expert-argues-draconian-measures-unnecessary.html
“Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a hand-washing drive and recommend people keep two metres apart on March 16.”
Interesting to note that Monckton of Brenchley’s graphs also show UK infection rates dropping before the lockdown, and that he has said this was likely due to the initial light measures. Indeed, since the UK’s line on the graphs shows no deviation to its downward trend that can be attributed to the sudden, draconian lockdown, it’s difficult to not agree with Professor Heneghan.
It appears that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is resisting efforts to exit the lockdown. Given his comments above, hopefully Monckton of Brenchley will use whatever influence he may have on the government to counter that view.
PJF is right that the daily growth rate in cumulative cases has been falling ever since the first rather mild control measures were introduced. However, given that cumulative cases have continued to increase at a significant compound rate, it is not difficult to calculate that without the 85-95% reduction in person-to-person contact that the lockdown in the UK achieved there would have been far more deaths than there have been.
Can that explain the difference between 5 per million & 200+ per million?
Still more questions than answers. Obesity is far smaller problem in Eastern Europe compared with the Western part. They tend to be also younger populations. Looks like this disease affects particularly hard black people – there are very few of them in the Eastern Europe. Some speculate that deficiency of G6PD enzyme may play significant role – countries with higher proportions of people suffering from this deficiency (USA, Spain, Italy, France) have also much more deaths from Wuhan virus.
And last but definitely not the least: sauna with good whipping the skin with boughs of fresh silver birch followed by shot of vodka – that most definitely makes a charm!
“On a French aircraft carrier 1081 soldiers tested positive. So far, almost 50% of them remained symptom-free and about 50% showed mild symptoms. 24 soldiers were hospitalized, one of them is in intensive care (previous illnesses unknown)”
The UK data on the worldometers page is rather fishy. The total recovered cases, although marked N/A, have remained at 344 for many days. (total cases minus deaths and minus active cases)
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
In response to Mr Lyons, the British Government’s failure to keep an elementary and up-to-date track of the true numbers of deaths and recoveries is lamentable. If we knew how many had recovered and how many had died, we could work out the true case fatality rate, and that would tell us much. But so useless is the British civil service that keeping even these elementary statistics in real time has proven beyond the cuisses-de-cuir.
It’s probably an official secret.
If we knew how many had recovered and how many had died, we could work out the true case fatality rate, and that would tell us much. – Monckton of Brenchley
No!
If we knew how many had been infected (Serology testing) and how many had died OF the infection and not WITH the infection, then we could work out the true case fatality rate!
Yes this pandemic is shining a light on how national health and administration systems operate. For us in the UK this will prove particularly uncomfortable.
Always wrong, Neil “no peer review” Ferguson, Lockdown
Vs
No Lock Down
Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, former professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene
Dr John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine
Professor Knut Wittkowski, Senior Research Associate, Rockefeller University
Dr Alexander Kekulé, Chair for Medical Microbiology and Virology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology at the University Hospital Halle
John Oxford, virologist at Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford
Dr Pablo Goldschmidt, Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.
By now, anyone following these threads will know Richard’s prejudices. One can line up row upon row of soi-disant experts on either side of the lockdown argument: but, in the end, the data are the best guide – or they would be, if governments had proven competent at collecting them.
And Richard’s otiose repetition of “no peer review” is becoming tedious. Ferguson’s code is now being scrutinized by other specialists, and the early indications are that it is deemed to be fit for its purpose. Certainly, its estimate of a 0.5% infection fatality rate is within the 0.1-1% range that I have calculated by using the standard technique of casting back deaths, and is in line with many other such estimates that have been published.
Richard can afford to sit in his armchair and be irresponsible. Governments have to be rather more cautious.
“Richard can afford to sit in his armchair and be irresponsible. Governments have to be rather more cautious”
Unfortunately they weren’t cautious and believed a man notorious for his previous failures.
“Once bitten, twice shy ” springs to mind.
Yaaawn. Chicom-19 will not even show up as a small blip in longevity or rate of death or any other statistic when this is all said and done.
Meanwhile, the number of unemployed outnumber people that have caught this virus 10:1, innutritious crap is sold out in groceries around the nation because that’s what people can afford with no job, domestic violence and suicide is skyrocketing, and calls for draconian collectivist government policies which could tarnish liberties and freedom are being made by those that want to use this self-created crisis to their advantage.
Mr Turner is already wrong. For weeks 14 and 15 (and, in Scotland, 16) the UK excess mortality rates are unprecedented in this century.
“Please Sir , can I have some more?”
Numbers , that is .
farmerbraun is unsure what level of signifiicance should be attributed to numbers “For weeks 14 and 15 (and, in Scotland, 16)”.
Perhaps “unprecedented in the last two decades” is not quite as scary as “unprecedented in this century” .
For weeks 14 and 15 (and, in Scotland, 16) the UK excess mortality rates are unprecedented in this century.
The ONS figures for week 15 are not released until tomorrow. Two possibilities:
Monckton of Brenchley has early access to the figures.
Monckton of Brenchley is making an educated guess. One with which I would agree, as it happens.
Nevertheless, Monckton of Brenchley should have been more careful to note that Robert W. Turner said “when this is all said and done”, which rather implies a scenario of examining outcomes when the COVID-19 adventure is over. Unless there is a dramatic change to current progress, it is clear that COVID-19 will not be an outstandingly bad disease.
165,000 deaths in 1 month, no not an oustandingly bad desease.
Plus of course the ones in China that they didn’t declare.
” worst of all the pieces of bad advice handed down by the “experts” is the idea that the best way to deal with this pandemic is to let as many people as possible get the infection and acquire what they chillingly call “herd immunity”.
No one said herd immunity is the best way, it is an important mechanism to community immunity that has been discounted in this case, despite ample scientific evidence of its benefits, unlike Fergusson magic model. In fact his modelling set off political panic and draconian measures that followed. Democracies and authoritarian regimes lack the subtlety to exploit the benefits of community immunity. Your simplistic summation of herd immunity also lacks the same subtlety. Calling it “herd immunity” is creepy though, but that doesn’t change its benefits.
Andre S has failed to take into account the fact that it is not yet known whether anyone who has been infected will have acquired more than a transient immunity. There are indications from South Korea, which has managed the pandemic competently, that some who had cleared the infection have already been reinfected. Until it is known that a sufficiently long immunity can be acquired, talk of “herd immunity” is so much idle chatter.
As none of us except for Steven Mosher is there, we have to treat these data as a hearsay. One possibility is that the test that “cleared the infection” could have been a false negative. Steven may give us his impression regarding the reliability of this data.
Christopher
You said, “Until it is known that a sufficiently long immunity can be acquired, talk of “herd immunity” is so much idle chatter.” Then probably the same can be said of vaccines! If an effective vaccine is beyond our reach, we have to find a solution to COVID-19 that doesn’t attempt to keep all non-essential workers under house arrest permanently! Where is the discussion about that alternate future?
Our so-called experts are all bureaucrats. They excel at repeating the official, conventional opinions expressed by their agencies and thinking inside the box. They are unconcerned and incurious about the “unintended” consequences of their policy commendations.
What we need are experts who think outside the box, people with enough general knowledge to make educated guesses on the good and bad consequences of their actions. We need people willing to see if their policies are working or not, and willing to make changes. We need people who are willing to ask if the cure is worse than the disease and whether lockdowns are the best way to manage the pandemic.
When you see the word “Expert” you should immediately suspect to what you are reading is an opinion, rather than a fact.
Niels Bohr’s Definition: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field